Friday, August 22, 2014

My Buddy's Mom Passed Away Yesterday - Apparently It Was Awesome

My friend TK's mom succumbed yesterday to a condition referred to in non-medical terms as living too long. Margaret King was 94. In the Process Excellence world, it may be said that she was experiencing multiple failure modes.

Margaret had been moved back to her nursing home from the hospital following a ten day stint. There had been a few other hospital visits already this summer. Hospice was called in because she had been experiencing some pain, and the hospice nurse explained that it probably would not be long.

Her husband Joe, an amazing man in his own right, had been gone a dozen years now. Joe stormed Omaha Beach and then marched all the to Berlin in WWII. Not many U.S. infantrymen lived through that beach, let alone the ensuing hike.

So, yesterday afternoon, as the play-by-play was explained to me by TK's oldest son, she headed off for a date night with Joe in what was described as an amazingly peaceful and natural transition. Margaret was surrounded by two of her three children (her other daughter, Nancy, was en route from Oregon), several grandchildren, a few close friends, and some staffers at the nursing home who were more than staffers. Nancy, although still in the air, was there in spirit in a most unique way. TK's youngest son, Aidan, at 13, remembering his aunt Nancy was a musician, had the brilliant idea to pull up some of her music on his iPhone.

And so, surrounded by people who loved her, with the sound of her daughter's music playing through a Bluetooth speaker on her nightstand, Margaret moved with incredible grace from this world to the next.

I cooked dinner for the family last night, and it was the oddest thing; No one was sad. No tears, no melancholy lamenting over what didn't get said or done. On the contrary, the cerebration of a life well-lived had begun. Accordingly, her grand daughter in NYC was piped in via face-time for a shot of really good double malt scotch (thanks Nic). The only question that lingered as everyone (even the grand kids - smaller shots) savored the smoothness of the whisky was, "What did Joe and Margaret do for dinner?"

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